


Ice Burns

by eleanor_lavish, thepsychicclam



Series: Valiant Effort [20]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:47:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/pseuds/thepsychicclam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dom meets Miranda Otto, Cambridge grad student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Burns

**Author's Note:**

> Written by EL.

The first time Dom saw her, he thought she was a ghost. Four AM on a Tuesday, and he was walking home from a club on Thompson, cash in his pockets and the remainder (very small) of that night's stash in his bag. She was crossing the street, lights from alleys and windows catching her pale skin and turning it translucent so Dom thought he could see into her, past her. Her hair was down, ethereal gold catching in the brisk air. He stopped in his tracks, stopped breathing, tried not to blink even for fear of scaring her away. She smiled at him, small and soft, and turned the corner. By the time Dom had shaken off her spell, she had vanished into the night.

**

The second time, she was much more human, real to the touch. He rounded a corner in the main branch of the public library, arms full of Ibsen, and ran straight into her. Ibsen hit the floor and found himself surrounded by her Proust and Descartes. Dom reached out an arm to steady her and found she had done the same for him, their hands clasping for balance. She laughed, a high throaty laugh.

"Are you alright there?" Her voice was husky, raw. Her eyes, hidden behind small black-rimmed glasses, danced blue.

"Yeah, yes. Sorry about that." Dom was blushing and he had no idea why. She had her hair up in a loose bun this time, and though she wasn't a ghost Dom couldn't tell how old she was. _Timeless_ , he thought.

She knelt down and began sorting through the pile of books between them.

"Ibsen." She looked up and caught him staring, mesmerized by the length of her neck.

"Not what you would expect, huh?" He shook off the heavy feeling in his chest and bent to help her. Her accent was strange. He couldn't place it.

Her face went suddenly still and she cocked her head to one side thoughtfully, looking not so much at Dom as through him. Like he had done to her on the street that night. "Actually, it's exactly what I would guess. Three or four steps past anarchy is Ibsen. For when you realize the world is truly that fucked up and there's nothing you can do about it. The only one who can beat him."

"is O'Neill," he finished. She smiled again, brightly. Dom was beginning to think she might be crazy. He liked crazy. "Australian?" He was pretty sure.

Instead of an affirmative, he got an "English" aimed back.

He smiled-- his first real smile in weeks-and took an armful of books as he helped her to her feet.

"'M Dom." He felt self-conscious holding out his hand for her to shake, as much for the inane scribblings of page numbers and phone numbers and code words like "Hopscotch" on his hands as for the ridiculous formality of it all.

"Miranda." Her hands were cold, unadorned save for a silver filigree ring on her right hand.

She pulled away from his grasp gently and gathered her arms tightly around her pile of Thinkers. Her smile changed as she turned to walk away-the same smile she had given him that night, soft and small.

"Hey!" He called after her, the moment slipping from him without warning. "I think I've seen you before. Downtown."

She turned without breaking stride and took a few backward steps. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes glittered. "I wouldn't doubt it."

**

He began stalking the library after that, although he wouldn't quite admit that to himself. _Just need to be out of that apartment. Away from Elijah and his fucking eyes_. But as he wandered the stacks of playwrights and philosophers, he caught his eyes following anyone with long blond hair, or stopping to listen when he heard a lilted voice. He began positioning himself at conspicuous tables in the middle of the great Reading Room, instead of at his usual couches in the corner. If he got strange looks from people, he didn't notice. He was too focused on studying the room for Miranda.

It paid off on a Thursday, two weeks later. He found her with the Greeks this time-Plato open on her lap, Aristotle tossed in her canvas shoulder bag. Her feet were bare, tucked up under her on the old leather armchair. Her jeans were faded and worn at the knee, and Dom could see ink stains in tiny polka dots on her thigh, probably from tapping her pen on her leg as she read-- as she was doing now. It wasn't a nervous movement, just methodical, rhythmic. He stood watching her for a long time, feeling like a git. _Just fucking talk to her, asshole!_ , he scolded himself. He ran a hand through his already messy hair and walked over, stuffing his left hand ("milk, beer, 237-8864, $250") in his pocket.

He raised his right hand ("Ian 10:45, _At tu, Dominic, destinatus obdura_ ") in greeting. "Hi." He hadn't been this nervous talking to a girl since Suzie Miller in grade ten. Dom's stomach flip-flopped as he remembered that Suzie had laughed. And not in a good way.

She looked up at him without a hint of surprise, pencils sticking out of her bun this time; her glasses were perched on the end of her nose. "How did the Greeks remain so damned cheerful while contemplating the relevancies of their own existence? It's maddening! At least the Germans were morose about it."

Dom was somehow unsurprised by her lack of proper greeting. "Bloody buggers," he replied with a smile. "No sense of propriety."

Miranda sighed and unfolded her legs from under her. "I suppose buggery would have cheered them considerably, yes." Pulling on a pair of bulky wool socks and straightening the neck of her equally bulky navy sweater, she collected her books and papers covered in half sentences into her bag. "Hand me my other shoe, would you Dom?"

Dom leaned over to reach behind her chair where the fur lined brown boot had been wedged. "Um. Are you going somewhere?"

"Well, you were going to ask me to coffee, yes?"

"I was hoping to be a bit more original than that, actually."

"Well, I've been on this paper for six days straight and I need coffee. So lets do original next time, and this time we can do coffee." And with that, she pulled on her navy pea coat and took Dom's hand, pulling him toward the exit.

 _Well. That went considerably better than Suzie Miller,_ Dom thought to himself.

**

She wasn't shy. That was pretty clear. Miranda Otto could talk. A lot. Usually this was an attribute in girls that annoyed the fuck out of Dom, but with Miranda it was different. She had things to say. About philosophy, about art ("what is art should be dictated by the masses, and not the critics. I still haven't figured out if that's a good thing"), and religion ("the Pope should be tried and convicted of war crimes in Africa after his stance on AIDS education"), and film and music and children and atomic particles. Her hands flew when she talked, gesturing or illustrating a point with lines Dom couldn't quite see, or pushing a stray strand of hair impatiently behind her ear.

That first day, sitting in a diner around the corner from the library, Dom learned quite a few things about Miranda. She was unwilling to talk about age, though Dom figured her at a few years his senior. She was working toward her Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia. She lived in the village. She hated dogs ("too trusting") and loved country music ("its so simple, so pure"). She'd spent a few years studying at Cambridge. When she was a little girl, she'd wanted to be a large animal vet on her parents ranch outside Brisbane. Now, she wasn't sure what she wanted.

She managed to find out a few things about Dom too, despite his efforts to keep her in the dark.

"You work at a bar? I can see how that would be a good cover."

"Cover?"

"For kids looking to score. You must have a really understanding boss."

"How did you."

"Who are you too stubborn to get over?"

"What?" Another abrupt change of subject sent Dom reeling. Was she fucking psychic or something? When he just stared at her stupidly, she pointed to the writing on his hand.

"'At tu, Dominic, destinatus obdura'," she read. "But I believe it should read 'At tu, Catulle'*. Who have you lost that you are too stubborn to get over?"

"Oh." Dom stared at the letters scribbled over the back of his hand. He immediately thought of the last time he had seen Elijah, the afternoon before, his feet tucked up under him on the couch while he studied. He hadn't noticed Dom for a few moments, absorbed in _Richard III_ , and Dom had noticed the way Elijah's clothes were hanging loose on his already thin shoulders, the dark blue smudges under his eyes, the ashtray overflowing on the carpet. As Dom stood there, the ash from the clove hanging precariously from Elijah's fingers dropped to the already dirty carpet. _"You're gonna kill yourself with those things." "Fuck off." "Just trying to be helpful." "Like you give a shit."_ And Elijah had moved into the bedroom, slamming the door so hard some water had splashed out of Dom's fish tank.

"Nobody. Just liked the quote." Dom could feel Miranda's eyes on him, and couldn't meet them.

"Mmmmm," she cocked her head to the side, looking through him again. She sat like that for a full minute before she nodded her head and ordered them scones with jam.

**

They met almost every day after that, for coffee or vegetarian Indian curry or barbeque ribs. She dragged him to gallery openings in Brooklyn and kosher falafel stands in Washington Heights. Jumping from topic to topic almost without warning, Dom found his brain running to keep up with Miranda's not-quite-random thought processes. He was giddy around her, like her perfumed skin and wild gestures and breath from all those jump cuts in conversation was changing the air around him into helium. He laughed out loud a few times, not at something funny per se, but at himself. If being around Elijah these days made Dom feel heavy, and lost and tired, then being around Miranda made him feel light and energized.

He had conversations with her that he'd only had internally with the philosophers in his books before. Arguments, discussions, debates-she was focused and opinionated and hated to lose. Dom pushed her, and she pushed back. Once, sitting on a chilly afternoon in Washingtom Square, they attracted a group of onlookers when a discussion of the exhibit they had seen at the Guggenheim turned into a shouting match about the merits of modern art.

She hadn't called him for three days. When she did, all she said was "There's a special Rodin exhibit at the Met. Think you can handle it?"

His only reply had been "When, bitch?" and she'd laughed.

**

After about three whirlwind weeks, Miranda came to a Valiant Effort show. She'd invited herself, and Dom tried to talk her out of it.

"It's not country, Mir. You'll hate it."

"Do you hate it?"

"Some days." Rehearsals hadn't gone well that week, and Billy was getting stressed about the upcoming recording sessions.

"I don't believe you."

And that was that. She was in the balcony of Ian's the next night. Dom tried to pretend she wasn't there. He focused on Orli instead, his usual swagger amped up to a dull angry roar echoed by Billy on every chorus. They were all playing with more verve these days-harder, faster, jagged. It was as though all the frustration they felt at each other, things that couldn't be said in words, could be expressed on stage. Dom watched Elijah assault his drum set, arms flying, beads of sweat forming at his temples. He watched Orli's fingers on the fret of his guitar, pressing so hard the strings were cutting through his skin. He felt it in himself too, Elijah's flashing, accusing eyes driving him to play harder so the reverberation would wash away the sick feeling in his stomach.

In all this, he only looked at Miranda once. And when he did, he found she wasn't watching him.

She was watching Elijah watching him.

**

"So. He's your Lesbia."

Dom almost snorted beer out his nose. They were perched at a table in the back of Ian's. Orli was dancing wild-eyed in a sea of people. Billy had already gone home. Elijah sat on the opposite side of Ian's with Karl. Dom sat with his back to Elijah, but he could feel Elijah staring at him. At them.

"I'm sorry?" Miranda's out-of-the-blue comments were still hard to get used to.

"'At tu, Dominic.' He's the one you can't get over."

Dom was too tired to be surprised. Maybe she was psychic. Or maybe he was too drunk to be subtle. He finished his beer in one long gulp.

"Yeah."

"Pretty." She was looking over his shoulder at Elijah, scrutinizing him with her head tilt and see-right-through-you eyes. "Young. Looks fragile, with those eyes." She tilted her head to the other side. "But he's not, is he? He doesn't have your shell yet, but he's growing one. More cautious "

"Right. He's like a fucking crab in a shell." Dom couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Actually," she smiled, "crabs don't grow their own shells. They pick up ones that were abandoned by someone else. I wonder who lost a shell recently?"

Dom felt her eyes on him again, and looked up to meet them defiantly. _She thinks she fucking knows anything about Elijah, anything about me..._ "You think you're pretty fucking smart, huh?"

"I am pretty fucking smart." And she leaned back in her chair, blond hair pooling over arms folded at her chest, and smirked.

"Then you'll know I'm not keen on talking about Lijah right now." He leaned forward over the table, eager to wipe that smirk off her face.

"I think you've got no idea what you're keen on right now."

"Fuck you."

"I thought you'd never ask."

**

Her apartment was a walk-up, like they all were in the neighborhood, and as he climbed the floors, Dom couldn't stop thinking about the look on Elijah's face when he left with Miranda. He hadn't ever told Elijah he was seeing someone, mainly because he wasn't, not really. They hadn't discussed what they were doing, and it was less dating and more like a study group most of the time.

But now, outside Miranda's door, Dom reached out and ran his palm down the length of her back and slipped his fingers under the hem of her shirt. She inhaled sharply as the key turned in the lock. "Cold hands."

Dom would have responded with a smart remark if given the time, but she had the door open and was pulling him inside by his free hand, tossing keys and glasses and bag on the corner table and pushing Dom back into the door to close it in one fluid movement. Trapped between Miranda and the door, Dom was suddenly thrown off kilter. She stared directly at him, unsmiling and unflinching. She removed her hand from his chest long enough to pull her black sweater over her head, dropping it onto the floor. All she was wearing under it was a black bra-not lacy or frilly or girly. Black. A very "doing my job" utilitarian sort of bra. An "I'm not wearing this to please anyone but me" sort of bra. In control.

Much like the lady who is wearing it. _Miranda Otto is not shy. Nope, not at all_. And the next thought was muffled by the feeling of Miranda's mouth on his neck, tongue sliding seductively close to his ear. "Come on, Monaghan," she practically purred. "You up for it?"

And as if to check manually, Miranda's hand slid firmly down his stomach to grasp at the denim covering his crotch. He was already half hard from the anticipation and at the friction, his breath hitched for a moment. She laughed. Not mocking exactly, but like she'd won some sort of contest. Dom couldn't figure out if he should be offended or flattered. Like most things with Mir, he figured there was logic in there somewhere, and it would surface eventually. For now, he was concentrating on the feeling of her slender fingers stroking him through his jeans, of her smooth, pale skin under his hands, of the wisps of hair tickling his cheek as she leaned into him.

Her mouth wasn't wide and eager like Elijah's, but small and deliberate. Every time Dom tried to push the kiss further, deeper, urged on by over stimulation below the waist, Miranda pulled back and started over with soft lips and the lazy rolls of her tongue over his. With the disconnect in the sensations-the urgent, rough flick of her wrist versus the languid circles of her mouth-Dom thought he was losing his mind, unsure of what to focus on.

After what seemed like hours, Miranda made the decision for him. Pulling away, she left him panting against the door and walked the ten steps across the studio apartment to the bed, still messy with books and photocopies of journal articles from the night before. Sitting on the bed, she pulled off her heavy boots and unbuttoned her slim black slacks. "You didn't think we were going to finish in the doorway, did you?" She shucked the pants and crossed her arms, shooting him a bemused look. "Well, get your ass over here!"

Dom managed to cross the room and lose most of his clothes in six steps, not ten.

**

Dom was quick to learn that Miranda's mouth was good at pretty much everything. Taunting, laughing, kissing, sucking. The only place it failed her was singing. Miranda was a bloody awful singer.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Mir! Shut up! I'm trying to get some sleep."

"It's my shower, asshole," came the muffled reply from the bathroom. Dom buried his head under the pillow as she started up on the chorus of _Respect_ again, louder.

After another minute of auditory torture ( _and I'm in a fucking rock band_ ), Dom growled softly and rolled out of the low bed. He padded naked to the bathroom door and opened it with a loud "Boo!"

She didn't even flinch. Dom was convinced some days that Miranda was a fucking psycho.

She merely stopped singing and stared at him with the 'you think you're so smart' smile, as Dom had dubbed it. "Are you getting in or what?"

Miranda dry and horizontal was deliberate, as methodical in her fucking as she was in her kissing. Miranda wet and vertical looked slippery and devious and like she might bite.

Hell yeah, Dom was getting in.

He twined himself around her, pulling the curtain closed behind him haphazardly. She threw her head back and laughed as he nuzzled her neck with morning stubble. His hands felt big on her shoulders, and she looked smaller somehow with her hair slicked down her back. _Everything looks smaller when wet._

Dom bent lower, running the stud of his tongue ring over her nipple. Gasping, Miranda tugged harshly at the hair at the nap of his neck. Dom smiled against her skin, drinking the water as it ran over her breasts into his waiting mouth. She slipped a warm thigh between his and shifted in his arms until she heard a gasp.

"Miranda, fuck."

"Come on Dom. Shower sex? How unoriginal." But as she talked she began rubbing her soapslick knee against his cock, bending to lick the water from where it pooled at his collarbone. He was hard almost instantly.

"I've found the original is usually the best anyway. Like _Psycho_. No one needed to remake that." He cupped her ass firmly and pushed her the half step back into the cold tile of the shower wall.

"Leave it to you to bring up _Psycho_ while we're in the shower." Her left leg slid up and around his hip, pulling Dom flush against her.

"Hey, that's a _brilliant_ movie." He slid inside her slowly, marveling at how, in the heat of the shower, his cock barely registered where it was until Miranda took a sharp breath and contracted snugly around him.

"You have some sort of," she took a staggered breath, "Mommy complex Monaghan?" Her knees were giving out from the sensations in her body and the slickness of the porcelain floor. Dom braced himself against the shower wall with one arm, the other hand still holding Miranda's ass, pulling her into his strokes.

"Dunno." It was getting hard to form coherent sentences. "How old were you again?"

Shuddering, Miranda cried out as Dom sped up, his hips crushing hers into the tile. She came in waves, her leg flexing and contracting around him. He let himself go; well aware he wasn't going to be able to hold her up much longer. He pulled before as he came, second nature after years of unsafe sex in club bathrooms, and was startled by a bright searing pain that accompanied the blinding orgasm.

He watched as Miranda licked gently at a red welt forming on his left bicep.

She'd bit him.

"Bitch."

"Wanker. You call me old again, and next time I draw blood."

~Fin

 

 

_*From the Poems of Catullus, number 8:_  
Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,  
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.  
Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,  
cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat  
amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.  
Ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant,  
quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat,  
fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.  
Nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque impotens noli,  
nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,  
sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.  
Vale puella, iam Catullus obdurat,  
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam.  
At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.  
Scelesta, uae te, quae tibi manet uita?  
Quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella?  
Quem nunc amabis? Cuius esse diceris?  
Quem basiabis? Cui labella mordebis?  
At tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura. 

__

 

_Poor Catullus, you must stop being silly,_  
and count as lost what you see is lost.  
Once the sun shone bright for you,  
when you would go whither your sweetheart led,  
she who was loved by me as none will ever be loved.  
Then there took place those many jolly scenes  
which you desired nor did your sweetheart not desire.  
Truly the sun shone bright for you.  
Now she desires no more: do you too, weakling, not desire;  
and do not chase her who flees, nor live in unhappiness,  
but harden your heart, endure and stand fast.  
Goodbye, sweetheart. Catullus now stands fast:  
he will not look for you or court you against your will.  
But you will be sorry when you are not courted at all.  
Wretch, pity on you! What life lies in store for you!  
Who will come to you now? Who will think you pretty?  
Whom will you love now? Whose will people say you are?  
Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?  
But you, Catullus, be resolute and stand fast.  



End file.
